A few lyrics resonate pretty well with me. "I don't know if I'm ready but I want to move on... and I've never said that before" can pretty much sum up the last 4 months of my life. "Make me better, I can't stay half way dead forever" is another one. But the big one is a simple question:
"When you take the sick away who am I supposed to be?"
"When you take the sick away who am I supposed to be?"
So many close people in my life and even doctors and therapist have told me that I'm more than a diagnosis and, to whatever extent my OCD allows me (see what I did there?), I believe them. But there is always this fear: I've lived my entire life with OCD and anxiety disorder which lead to almost constant depression. If you remove those, how much of what makes me me was a byproduct of those conditions being severe?
It's a similar situation with the idea of "How can I know what peace feels like if I never experienced true peacefulness?" There has only been one moment in time where I was able to sit, lose myself entirely in the moment, and not worry about seats or the people around me or anything else. When we opened up for the band VAST their live show was just amazing.
Sure, it's a bit influenced by the likes of the Cure and such, but their music was just so layered and perfectly performed that I was able to sit there in awe and just enjoy every beat and note without worrying about stupid things like "What if I don't recognize this song" or "Are my friends having fun? Should I check in on them?"
Old therapist have told me to try to search inside myself to figure out why this is. I've been to dozens of concerts and I've never really felt that peaceful sensation before. Maybe I was already tired because we just opened for them two bands before they took the stage, maybe their music has a soothing quality to it, I don't know. VAST isn't even one of my favorite bands anymore yet I still look back on that show as one of my favorites.
These are two issues I have to focus on as we move on through the year and more and more changes pile up to create what is essentially a Taser 2.0... "What makes me me is me... not my OCD or Panic Attacks" and "How to find mindfulness in social situations and just enjoy and have fun?" There's still the overreaching "Learning to love myself" self-confidence issue that is at play, too, as well as learning and practicing as much Cognitive Behavior Therapy techniques to combat unwanted thoughts as I can, but I feel like handling the idea that I'm not who I am because I have an illness or I'm not who I am because I'm fat is probably a good thing to cover, too.
This year is going to be a bonanza of change and awesome. I just have to allow myself to let things happen without overthinking everything which is so much easier said than done. But I'll do my best.
